


This I Promise You

by ysse_writes



Category: Demon Diary
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-10
Updated: 2011-09-10
Packaged: 2017-10-23 14:38:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/251444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ysse_writes/pseuds/ysse_writes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for haraamis for Yuletide 2008.</p><p>What we have here is a failure to communicate. (This should be my summary for all my stories!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	This I Promise You

**Author's Note:**

> The characters and situations of Demon Diary (ko: 마왕일기 mawang ilgi, "Diary of a Demon King") are owned by Kara(Kim Yoon-gyeong and Jeong Eun-sook). I just borrowed them for a while. They were returned unharmed as soon as I was done playing.

He found The Magnificent Great Demon Lord, Raenef the Fifth, in the solarium, looking out the Eastern Window. He mentally rolled his eyes out of habit--imagine a demon castle with a solarium! But after the last time the children had ruined the Great Hall and considering the propensity of all matter of uninvited guests and unknown threats to suddenly pop up, seemingly as soon any of them stepped outside the castle walls,  a large open space _inside_ the castle seemed to make sense. (If asked, he would vehemently deny the suggestion that he was well aware of his master's love of the outdoors, or how particularly lovely the boy looked when his hair was tinged with sunlight.)

Raenef turned when he heard Eclipse's footsteps.

"Sire," he greeted, with a slight bow. "Breakfast is ready."

The old Raenef would have grinned like an idiot at seeing him, started bouncing like a monkey at the mention food. This Raenef merely gave him a small smile, nodded to acknowledge his words before going back to his somewhat melancholic perusal of the newly planted rose bushes.

Eclipse sighed himself. He'd spent considerable time and effort trying to make his master more somber and dignified, but now...

He walked to Raenef's side.

"Are you lonely?" Eclipse asked, "with your friends gone?"

Raenef looked startled, then vigorously shook his head. "No, of course not!" He then bit his lip, colored slightly. "Well, maybe a little."

"They'll be back soon. I'm sure they miss you, too," he assured Raenef. He almost reached out, intending to rub the top of the boy's head but stopped himself just short of contact. Raenef was full-fledged demon lord now, and one did not muss up a demon lord's hair, no matter how cute and adorable said demon lord may seem. It was just not done. He pretended not to notice the slightly hurt expression in Raenef's eyes. "Now come on, my Lord, your pancakes are getting cold."

To his relief , Raenef grinned, clapping his hands. "Pancakes, yay!"

 

 

"Now," Eclipse said, "do you remember what to do if your enemy conjures up a basilisk?"

Raenef wrinkled his brow intently. "Scream and run away?"

Eclipse exhaled, patiently. "Lord Raenef, you know very well that no demon lord ever, and I mean _ever_ , screams and runs away. Especially not a Raenef. Now come, stop fooling around, if you please, and focus." Before, he would have been angry at such a frivolous answer, at the idea that the child was wasting time playing around. However, he knew that Raenef knew the answer to his question and suspected that he played dumb only out of kindness, to let Eclipse feel more needed than he actually was.

The days were quiet now, with Chris and Erutis gone. Eclipse tried to enjoy the calm, the silence; the ability to stroll down the castle hallways without an imp (or three) barreling into him; to walk into a room without expecting to see a broken vase or torn curtain; and waking up to peace and birdsongs in the mornings, not boisterous shrieks or screams of bloody murder. It should have been a relief, a welcome return to his old world, his old ways. Instead, he spent way too much time cleaning up messes that no longer existed, cooking too much food for unwelcome guests that had left long ago.

Obviously, he had underestimated the extent to which the children had disrupted his life, or how badly his master has corrupted his sanity.

He was Eclipse, Demon of the Third Order. Even gods knew his name, even demon lords were wary of invoking his wrath. He had fought in wars that had leveled worlds and never flinched, killed thousands with nary a blink of an eye. And yet now the opinion of one fifteen-year-old boy was all he cared about. Now he agonized, not about his place in the grand scheme of things but about his right to stay beside his master.

Raenef the Fourth had had wars to wage, enemies to kill, a universe to conquer. This Raenef had no interest in such things. There were his daily lessons, of course, but the truth with the 'integration,' Eclipse doubted there was anything left he could teach Raenef that he didn't already know. Despite the fact that Raenef seemed perfectly happy sitting still (well, as still as Raenef could be, which was admittedly not very) during his lessons, Eclipse nevertheless felt useless. Now that Raenef had come into his full powers, Eclipse was not even very much use. Of course, he could be perfectly content to simply be a silent companion, stay by Raenef's side as he had promised, but he wondered what use he could be to the child now. He was a servant, one chosen by gods, but a servant nonetheless. Pledged to serve, but uncertain, not only of how of fulfill his duty, but of what that duty might now entail.

"Are you mad?" Raenef asked, quietly.

"Of course not, Sire," he answered. "If you're bored, perhaps a stroll in the garden?"

He did not expect the sudden flash in Raenef's eyes, the sudden spike of power that shot through the atmosphere, an unbidden outburst of anger.

"Why aren't you mad?" he demanded. "You _never_ get mad anymore, why?"

He looked at Raenef in surprise. "My Lord?"

"You never touch me anymore," Raenef said, "not like you used to. You don't whack me on the head, or pull at my cheeks, or even muss up my hair. You don't even call me an idiot anymore."

Eclipse blinked, confusion rising. "You want me to call you an idiot?"

The air cackled again as Raenef stamped his feet. "No, you're the idiot!" he said, then ran off, ostensibly to pout. "You idiot!"

"Lord Raenef!" Eclipse could only stare after his master, completely at a loss for the first time in his what now felt was his over-long life.

He slumped back on his seat, suddenly exhausted. He had fallen so very far, indeed. To the very bottom, in fact. Because after this, after Raenef the Fifth, he did not have anywhere else to go. Rather, after Raenef, there was nowhere else he wished to go.

 

He found him again, this time in the previous Raenef's rooms, standing beside the great portrait of the last demon lord.

"Sire," he said, softly.

"Tell me," Raenef said, in the voice of the other Raenef, before he could even begin his apology. When he looked at Eclipse his eyes were cold. Eclipse had to suppressed a frisson of alarm. "Tell me how you came to serve the previous demon lord. My... my father. How did you find each other? Were you brought together by the gods as well?"

It sounded dramatic, Eclipse thought. Sweetly so. He did not often think of destiny. "No," Eclipse said. "He contracted my services."

"How?"

"You know how," he said. "Like you, he was young but had undeniable power. He was the strongest of demon lords, and I was uncontracted at the time."

"He bound you," Raenef said. "How?

Eclipse looked askance at Raenef. "Are you looking for more retainers? Do you seek to bind other demons? You could do so, and very easily, if you wished." He paused. "Are you unsatisfied, in any way, with my services?"

He almost said, _Am I unworthy of you now?_

"Tell me the terms of your contract with my father," Raenef said, "and I will break it. I will set you free."

_Do you not want me, anymore?_

They never had a formal contract, this Raenef and himself. Now that he considered it, the gods had merely ordered him to find the new Raenef, they did not give him any instruction or mandate beyond that. It was his loyalty to his old master, to the Raenef name, that had made him stay those first few days with Raenef, then later his--he could admit this now --strange fascination with Raenef himself.

"How did he bind you?" Raenef asked again. "What were the terms of your contract?"

He was suddenly angry himself, that Raenef could so callously think of sending him away.

"I can not tell you that," he said. "The contract was valid, that is all you need to know."

"You should be free," Raenef insisted.

_Will you be lonely? _he wondered._ If I go?_

Your hair," Raenef said, suddenly. "You never cut it, why?"

"I like it long," he answered, simply.

"It's beautiful," Raenef said. "I have dreams about your hair. But it's more than that, isn't it? It's your pledge. The vow you made, the proof of your promise. You promised you would never cut your hair. Stronger than blood because it remains with you, a part of you."

Eclipse did not reply. He should have known Raenef would figure it out. Despite his innocence the boy was strangely intuitive.

"What happens if I command you to cut it? Will it sever your ties to him? Free you from your promise?"

"I made that promise freely," Eclipse said, again, desperately. "I do not need--"

"And what did he give you in return? Raenef asked. "What is the proof of his promise? Tell me and I will free you."

"He gave me you!" he shouted. "He promised me the future. He asked the old me to trust him, to trust in time, and he gave me you. I just didn't understand until now, until you came. " He paused to catch his breath. "Why are you acting like this, asking this so suddenly? " Eclipse's asked in a low hiss, trying to hold to regain his dignity. "You were the one," he said. "You were the one who asked me to stay with you. Forever, you said. _Forever_. Stay with me forever."

Raenef blinked, and it was as if the dawn broke behind his eyes. "And you said yes," Raenef said, breathily. "You said yes. My father was dead, you were uncontracted at the time, and you said yes. You gave me your promise."

"Yes, yes!" Eclipse said, exasperatedly.

"You were mine," Raenef said, "all this time." He reached out and reached out to pull Eclipse closer to him. "You were mine all along. And you'll be mine forever, stay with me forever."

"Yes! When will you learn to listen when I tell you things? Yes!"

"And what will you give me, as the proof of your promise?" Raenef asked, and his smile was mischievous and oh so brilliant, brighter than sun.

"Everything," Eclipse said. "Anything. I'd start another war if, get you the moon, if I thought that was what you wanted."

"How about we start with a kiss? On the mouth? With tongue ? Or maybe --- oooh!"

Raenef might have just been kidding, but Eclipse wasn't taking any chances.

 

 

THE END


End file.
